Nico Meets His Match
by AndHerNameWasAnastasia
Summary: Nico D'Angelo never planned on meeting a girl like him, a girl from the Underworld. Gods knew he was caught by surprise. But her life is even more complicated than his, and he doesn't know how to help a girl who doesn't want his help. Nico D'Angelo has definitely met his match. T for Tacos


**A/N: Hello. This is Ana, in case you've never raed any stories of mine. So... I don't know what to say about this story, because I'm in love with Nico and he's falling in love with my OC, whom I DID NOT BASE AFTER MYSELF, THANK YOU. So Enjoy, or don't enjoy because I don't know your life.**

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan because I'm missing a few *ahem* parts to be a man. **

Chapter 1

It was official. Nico de Angelo hated Fridays. Of course you are probably wondering why anyone could hate Fridays, the best day of the week. Well you'd be seriously done with Fridays too if you'd had the day Nico'd had.

It started off pretty well. He was well rested when he woke up in the perpetually dark Hades cabin at Camp Half-Blood, the way he did every morning. That was when the flowers attacked.

_Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. _Nico forgot who said that particular quote, but he was living the proof that it was absolutely true.

Vines wrapped around his ankles and pulled him out of his warm bed and out into the sun, where a beautiful girl with curly brown hair was glaring down at him. Nico felt the prickle of rose thorns inching toward his neck and didn't want to know what would happen if they made it there.

The girl cleared her throat as if Nico hadn't yet realized she was there.

"Well, Jocelyn you are looking ravishing on this fine morning. Tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company? Surely you are missed at the Demeter cabin."

The girl scoffed and the vines retreated, thankfully. "I came to find out if you were over that little outburst you had last night!"

Nico sighed and dusted himself off, painfully aware that he was in his pajamas and therefore couldn't imagine her taking what he had to say any seriously than she had last night.

"Listen, Jocelyn, we had a good run, really. It's time you moved on. It's not you—it's me. We have to be adults about this, I mean we are seventeen years old…"

And suddenly the vines were back, but thankfully not for long. Just as Jocelyn was reiterating what she had said the night before when Nico had ended it (I just cannot believe you would do this to me! We have something special! We have _chemistry_!), his knight in shining armor appeared out of her tree. Celine the wood nymph, only thirteen but very bold, forced the vines back from Nico.

"Ugh Nico, don't you just hate when people can't take no for an answer?"

Jocelyn whipped her head around and gaped at the wood nymph, like she could not believe who had just talked to her like that.

"Listen tree girl, Nico can't babysit you right now, since he's spending quality time with his girlfriend."

Celine took on a look that Nico associated with the statement, "Oh, hell to the no!" He smirked. Jocelyn wouldn't know what hit her.

"No, you listen Old McDemeter had a harpy! Nico isn't spending time with his girlfriend! He's being harassed by a psychopath who doesn't understand that he wants nothing to do with her anymore. Clearly, I'm not the one who needs to be babysat."

Jocelyn merely scoffed once more and walked away, clearly at a loss for a response. Nico stood up and hugged the tiny wood nymph that had just saved him from all sorts of emotional and physical trauma.

"Celine, you are a life-saver."

Celine smiled and pulled her hair into a pony tail, revealing her pointed ears.

"Oh, you'll pay me back later. Besides, I only came here to tell you that Cherry told me that Boris told her that Laren said that Hanna told her that Chiron needed you. I'm just the messenger."

Nico scoffed. "One of many, apparently. Alright, tell Cherry to tell Boris to tell Laren to tell Hanna to tell Chiron that I'll be there in three seconds. I should get there just as the news actually reaches his ears."

Celine nodded and darted into the forest to spread the word as Nico went inside and changed into a clean tee-shirt and jeans. When he was done, he ran a comb through his hair and left for the archery range where he knew Chiron would be.

As he approached the archery range, Nico watched a young, blue haired naiad whisper something in Chiron's ear and scamper away. That would be the messenger; Nico had timed it perfectly.

"Chiron, I received word that you needed me for something?"

Chiron turned to him and smiled. He pulled Nico aside, where they would be out of hearing range and shooting range of the campers. From what Nico could see, he should be more worried about the latter.

"I have a job for you, Nico. It's not an easy one, but you are the most capable to get it done, so I am going to hope that you'll agree."

Nico's smile vanished like smoke in a wind tunnel. "Chiron, you know how I feel about quests…"

"It wouldn't be a quest if you weren't issued a prophecy. It wouldn't take more than a few days, at most. Just some business that needs to be taken care of."

Nico sighed and ran a hand through his black hair. "Fine. What is it?"

Chiron patted his back and chuckled. "Such enthusiasm! No matter. There is a lake in Northern Maine, Lake Bioris. It has been infested with a rather… unpleasant creature. The creature has been tormenting the naiads occupying the lake, and they've sent a formal complaint to have us send someone to dispose of the creature."

"And you want me to do it. Why wouldn't you ask Percy, again? Lakes and water and things that live in lakes and water… those are kind of his thing."

Chiron nodded and sighed. "Unfortunately, Percy is at college, with many of the other campers, given that it is only May. I wouldn't ask him to sacrifice his studies to deal with a small problem I could easily take care of."

"And by take care of, you mean pass it off to the first guy having something resembling peace in they years since the giant war. Chiron, there are plenty of other options. What about Jason? Or Piper? Call in Clarisse, for gods' sakes! She is probably eager to tear up the guts of some monster anyway."

Chiron had that look in his eye, the one that means he was leaving out something important.

"What aren't you telling me, Chiron?" Chiron ignored the question.

"You should leave as soon as possible. Take Mrs. O'Leary." Chiron turned back to his class, and Nico stormed off, pretty much ready to tear something to pieces. How he wished that something could be a certain knowledge-withholding centaur.

Nico left within the hour, still grumbling about centaurs and secrets and quests. He didn't tell anyone that he had left; he just grumpily hopped on the great dog's back and moped the entire way there.

Shadow travelling was rather easy for him, so he had plenty of energy when he and Mrs. O'Leary arrived in a forest. His second mistake was using his energy to start complaining to Mrs. O'Leary about Chiron. Which is how he ended up with an arrow notched straight at his forehead by some girl he'd never seen.

She had black hair. Not dark brown, but black. It fell in loose curls to her shoulders, and she was as pale as a ghost. Her eyes were the clear blue, a color caught between ice and ocean, and she emanated confidence.

"Who are you?" Nico asked. The girl's eyes flitted to his orange camp shirt and back to his face.

"I'm afraid I'm the one asking questions. What do you want?" The girl intensified her glare.

"Listen, I'm just trying to do my job."

"Oh? And what would _that _be?"

Nico crossed his arms and glared at her back. "I'm not answering until you pull that arrow away from my face."

She lowered her bow, but she didn't put her arrow back in its quiver. Nico's gaze drifted to the tip of her arrow. It was bronze.

"Is that celestial bronze?"

The girl didn't react to his question. "I asked you why you were here. Answer me."

Nico swallowed. The girl was intimidating, and quite obviously a half-blood. He could tell celestial bronze from low-grade mortal metals. He assumed Aphrodite, yet never had he met such an aggressive daughter of the Goddess of Love and Beauty. This girl made Piper look like a wimp. I mean, she had the beauty part down pat, but Nico was _not _feeling the love.

"Relax and put your bow away, Apollo. For your information, I'm not here to hurt you. In fact, when I finish my job, I can take you somewhere where you won't need to worry about fighting monsters anymore."

"You still haven't told me what you came here for. And besides, you don't want me at your Half-Blood Camp. I'm not a big fan of Manhattan, honestly."

Nico was surprised. He had never come across a half-blood in the wilderness that willingly chose to stay away from Camp. He wondered what made her think she wasn't wanted there.

"Didn't expect me to know about your little safe-haven, did you? Well listen up, boy. If I were you, I would get back on your hellhound and hightail it back to your little camp. You don't want to be around me when it gets dark."

Now Nico was a little on edge. It was hard to scare him, a son of Death himself, but here he was, nervous.

"I'm a son of Hades. Whatever you have wrong with you, I've seen worse." The girl was inches from his face.

"Are you so sure about that, son of Hades? Listen, I have something I need to do too, so if you don't mind, I'm just going to tie you up now."

Nico hadn't realized it, but when the girl had been drifting closer to him, it wasn't because she was attracted to his natural musk. He felt a rope wind around his arms before he could even make a move for his sword. Besides, it looked like she didn't just have a bow and arrow. In her hands was a gleaming golden sword, Imperial Gold, as a matter of fact. She had both Greek and Roman weapons.

In the time it takes someone to snap their fingers, he was sitting at the base of the tree, and Mrs. O'Leary was distracted with three juicy steaks—from where, he didn't know. He watched the back of the girl walk towards the lake he was supposed to be exterminating at the moment and wondered how his plans had gone so awry.

But more importantly, he couldn't get a question of his mind. The girl had both a Greek bow and arrow and a Roman sword. She didn't want to go to Camp Half-Blood, and he guessed she had denied similar offers to Camp Jupiter. She was his age, meaning she'd been surviving on her own in the face of monsters for roughly seventeen years. And something worse than a son of Hades has ever seen happens to her at night.

His one question: Who is she?

It took Nico only a short time to get out. Mainly because it only took a short time for Mrs. O'Leary to eat her way through three steaks and realize her master was tied to a tree, but that's beside the point.

Once Mrs. O'Leary attacked the ropes, it was only a matter of time. The ropes put up a good fight, really, they did, but they were no match for a gigantic demon dog from the pits of the Underworld.

Once Nico was free, he ran towards the lake, ready to get his dumb job over with, and ready to get the heck out of Maine before his Friday got any worse.

He should've knocked on wood.

When the trees completely thinned out, he found himself on a cliff overlooking the lake. The scene was gorgeous, with the greenest trees Maine had to offer, with the sparkling pool of royal blue water, and with the sun turning the water orange. But no, he was a little more preoccupied watching the mysterious girl ride on the back of a thirty foot long sea serpent as it nearly threw her off. It was green, with scales the size of shields, and probably just as strong. It's eyes were completely lime green with no whites or iris.' Its teeth were at least ten inches long, and sharpened to a deadly point. It was flailing around in the water, clearly aware that it had an unwanted passenger, but unable to shake her off.

Nico immediately ran back around the cliff to get to the lake and help. However, before he could cut in, the girl had done his job for him. Somehow, the girl had managed to shimmy up to the monster's neck and ran her sword across its neck. But not without a price, apparently. The monster had sunk a tooth into her arm, as he saw from the white spear sprouting from her shoulder. He watched in horror as her body fell twenty feet into the lake. Lucky for her, she fell only thirty feet off the coast, so with ease, Nico could drag her out of the water and thank the gods she hadn't blanked out and sank to the bottom.

"What was that thing?"

The girl was shivering and her shoulder was bleeding copiously, the tooth still stuck in it. "How about you get that tooth out of my arm first?"

"Yeah, of course. Uh, do you have any nectar or ambrosia?" Nico cursed himself for leaving his backpack with Mrs. O'Leary.

"Check my backpack, I think there'll be some in there." Her voice was weakening, and her breathing was heavy. He hoped that thing wasn't poisonous.

"You think?"

"It's magic. It fills with whatever I need. Gift from my mother. Just get it!"

Nico nodded and ran the thirty feet to get it, opening it as he went. Inside were bandages, a baggie with enough ambrosia to heal ten demigods, and a bottle of painkillers. He hoped mortal medicine worked on demigods.

The girl took the painkillers and swallowed two, put a bandage in between her teeth, then, before Nico could stop her, ripped the tooth from her arm with a sickening squelch. Her teeth bit through the bandage with the effort not to cry out. She quietly shoved three squares of ambrosia in her mouth as Nico bandaged her arm.

The girl was quiet as she let the ambrosia do its job. Her face took back its color, and her breathing was steadier.

She spoke first. "Thanks."

Nico looked at her. "For what?"

She looked away. "You saved my life. If you hadn't pulled me out of the water…well, I would never have made it back to shore with my arm the way it was."

Nico nodded. "So you owe me."

She frowned. "I guess I do."

They were silent again for a while, an uncomfortable silence where she wouldn't meet his eye.

"So, since you owe me, mind telling me who you are?"

She paused, and Nico waited, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"My name is Cassiopeia. But I go by Cass."

Nico nodded. At least he had something to call her.

"I'm Nico. Son of—"

"—Hades. You told me." He nodded again, something he was doing far too much of.

"Alright, so why aren't you at Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter? How have you survived so long? What happens to you at night that would scare even me?"

Nico regretted it. What little she had given to him, the trust in her eyes was diminished.

"Those things are none of your business."

"Yeah well, if I'm going to get hurt that pretty much makes it my business."

"Well, you won't get hurt, since you're leaving shortly."

"Well, there's certainly a risk, since I'm not leaving. You're in no shape to be left alone. You can't fight monsters with your arm like that."

The girl remained silent, and Nico acknowledged a victory. She couldn't fight his reasoning.

"Fine. But you leave the second my arm is back. And you stay away when night falls."

Nico nodded, though he was fairly certain that he would not follow through on her second request. He was just too curious.

The two remained silent for the duration of the afternoon, but once dinner came around, conversation was inevitable. Nico started a conversation as they ate soup from Cass's magic backpack.

"So where are you from?"

Cass looked at him as if she wasn't sure she should answer. Luckily, she decided that where she was from wouldn't give too much away.

"I'm from Minnesota."

Nico nodded. "What are you doing in Maine?"

She shrugged. "I never stay in one place too long. Maine seemed like just as good a place as any."

Nico could tell she wanted to talk, but didn't trust him enough yet. "I'm from Camp Half-Blood. But I'm actually a lot older than I look. I was hidden in the Lotus Casino for a few decades and suddenly everything was different. My sister and I, we were saved from this monster by some people from the camp when I was young, only ten or eleven. Do you have any siblings?"

The girl cocked an eyebrow. "I did, once. Tell me about your sister. What is she like?" Nico could see that she was trying to keep the conversation off of herself.

"Was. She's dead."

"Sorry." It seemed like she wasn't that sorry.

"What happened to your siblings?"

"It's complicated."

Nico nodded, and decided not to push her too much on it. He didn't like talking about Bianca much either.

"So why aren't you at Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter? I know you're a demigod."

She didn't deny it. "I'm the kind of demigod who attracts the wrong attention."

Nico was taken aback. "You're not a child of the Big Three, are you?"

"No. Remember, I told you, that backpack was a gift from my mom. My Dad is just as much a Greek God as a fat man in a toga. He owns a costume shop in Minneapolis."

"So you are Greek. I should've guessed. Cassiopeia is the Greekest name I've ever heard."

She rolled her eyes. "You're powers of deduction are rivaled by none. Yeah, I'm Greek."

Nico smiled. "So who's your mom?"

Her smile vanished. "As a son of Hades… You wouldn't want to know. My mom isn't all that fond of your dad."

"No one's fond of my dad."

She laughed, a tinkling sound that reminded Nico of bells. Her smile was a nice relief from the stony gaze she had originally been giving him.

"Well, my mom is unusually not fond of your dad. Actually, she probably hates me right now, for talking to you." Her eyes stayed on the setting sun in the distance, like the yolk of an egg spilling into the sky and dripping off the edge of the earth. "It's getting dark. You should probably go back to your hellhound. I'll see you in the morning."

Cass stalked off into the trees, and turned around to watch him leave. Nico stood up and walked in the other direction. He went all the way back to Mrs. O'Leary to wait for night to fall. He sat up against her warm fur. He would close his eyes just for a minute, wouldn't fall asleep.

Nico woke with a start, then silently cursed himself for falling asleep. Luckily, it was still the middle of the night, and he could still find out why Cass didn't want him around at night. He was vaguely reminded of a movie about a girl who turns into an ogre at night. He hoped it wasn't anything like that.

He was back at the lake, and questioning whether or not he should betray her trust the way he was planning to. If she was in danger, that was worthy cause, right?

That was when he heard it. She was talking, not far into the forest, and someone was talking back. He crept in and watched.

What he saw was less than desirable. Thousands of shimmering opalescent forms were gliding around the forest, around Cass. She was talking to one of them alone, a boy older than her, Percy's age. That was when his Friday really began to suck.

All at once, the shimmering forms' heads turned to look at him. Their eyes were cold and dead.

Nico caught his breath. They were all wearing clothes from different eras. He saw women in colonial era dresses, men with ascots, and a little girl wearing a tee-shirt and jeans. Cass turned away from the boy and stared in horror at Nico as the ghosts—because that was what they were, Nico had seen them before—crept toward him. Suddenly everything was frightening, every hair on his body was on edge. And then it was over, and all the ghosts were gone, save for the boy that Cass was talking too earlier. Cass and the boy's eyes were trained on Nico.

"I told you to stay away!" And then Cass was his sister. Nico did the only rational thing. He fainted.

When he woke up, the sun still had yet to rise, but it was just Cass with him.

"I thought I told you to stay away from me at night." Cass's voice was shaking with rage, and her fists were clenched at her sides. The light was doing something funny to her face again. It made it look like Bianca's. It left as soon as it came, but Nico now understood exactly who Cass was, since that sort of thing had only happened to him once before.

"I didn't want something bad to happen to you! I thought I could help!"

Cass seemed slightly less angry. "Nico, the chivalry isn't necessary. What happens to at night doesn't hurt me; it only hurts the people around me. That's why I'm not at either camp, that's why I don't live with my dad. That's why I stay away. It's better for anyone if they stay far away from me."

Cass seemed so forlorn, so sad, that Nico didn't think twice before laying hand on her shoulder for comfort. She flinched, but she didn't move away.

"Have you guessed who my mother is yet?"

Nico nodded. "Your mother is Melinoe, isn't she?"

Cass's eyes hardened, and Nico knew that he was right. "Yeah, mother dearest, the goddess of ghosts. She leaves the underworld at night and walks the earth with a train of ghosts. They say she's the reason dogs bark at night; she haunts people for fun. Not to mention that in the face of battle, she can turn into the form of someone her opponent has lost. She happened to pass that lovely trait on to me. Luckily, I learned how to control it, and I'm sorry if I scared you earlier. You surprised me."

Nico took all this in with a thick throat. He had met Melinoe once, and it wasn't an experience he wanted to relive any time soon. "So, those people who attacked me…"

Cass nodded gravely. "Ghosts—my mother's followers. They are attracted to me like moths to a flame. Wherever I am, they appear once the sun goes down, and disappear when it rises."

"Where are they now?"

Cass looked away. "I don't know. They disappeared the moment you fainted. Normally I can't get them to leave. They can drive mortals crazy. It's happened before."

Cass's eyes were glassy now.

"Your sibling? Was he the ghost you were talking to earlier?"

She nodded, but didn't explain. He didn't pressure her to.

"I'm sorry. But hey, I get it. People generally don't like to be around me, like death is contagious. It can be a little disconcerting, but there are people at camp who get it. Just come back with me, and stay a few days. If you really don't like it, then you can leave, and I or anyone at the camp won't stop you."

"I don't know Nico…"

"You won't have to worry about fighting monsters. We can take Mrs. O'Leary, my hellhound. Besides, your arm isn't fully healed anyway. Coming back with me would be the safest way."

She still didn't look sold. "What about the ghosts? It's sort of hard to hide twenty shining souls that follow me like groupies. Maybe I should just go to the underworld for a awhile…"

"You know an entrance?"

"Of course. I use my mother's to visit sometimes."

"You're trying to get me off topic." Nico felt slightly offended. He didn't get to just 'drop in' and chat with his dad unless there was something actually important to talk about. "Listen. You'll have your own cabin, and no one will have to know that you have any powers at all, okay? No one but you, me, and Chiron."

Cass stopped and thought about his proposition.

"Fine. One week."

Mrs. O'Leary loved Cass. Nico assumed that to her, Cass must smell like the Underworld—home.

Nico hopped onto Mrs. O'Leary's back and extended a hand to Cass. She looked nervous.

"Don't worry, shadow travel is perfectly safe."

Cass smirked. "You don't think I've shadow traveled before? That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried that someone else will find out about the ghosts and I'll be kicked out, just like every other place I've ever been happy."

"No one will find out. Besides, even if they did, and they did want to kick you out, they would have to go through Chiron." Nico looked away as he blushed. "And me."

Cass felt her face heat up. Nico was blatantly hitting on her. She cleared her throat and hopped onto Mrs. O'Leary's back and wrapped her arms around Nico's waist.

"Thanks."

They arrived in the forest about twenty feet from the edge of camp. Nico didn't want to think about what would happen if they just appeared in the middle of lunch, surrounded by hundreds of armed, ADHD demigods. Let it be known that in situations like that, demigods didn't look before they stabbed.

Mrs. O'Leary walked with them to the edge of camp, and then scampered to the strawberry fields, most likely to torment the satyrs by eating enough strawberries to feed a small nation.

"Follow me. Chiron will want to meet you." Cass nodded and followed Nico through camp as the year-round campers turned and appraised the new meat. Cass felt like an insect under a magnifying glass. It was disconcerting to say the least. It seemed as though the campers could see all her secrets from the way they surveyed her. As they passed a gaggle of particularly attractive campers, they all retreated to their cabin, whispering and pointing.

"Don't worry about them, they're awful gossips, Aphrodite's kids." Cass nodded and ignored it. She was used to being stared at and whispered about.

They approached Chiron, who was overseeing the canoeing kids, making sure no one drowned and such.

"Chiron. I'm back, and I've brought a friend."

Chiron turned around and met Cass's eyes. "Ah, Cassiopeia, it's been too long."

Cass was startled. The last time she'd seen Mr. Fenway was when he had lived next door to her, and he was in a wheelchair then. Mr. Fenway had been the one who had told her that she was special, had explained why people had continued to visit her each night. Then, when Michael had his accident, Cass ran away and never expected to see her old next-door-neighbor again. And yet here he was, with the body of a horse, no less.

"Mr. Fenway, what are you doing here?"

Mr. Fenway smiled. "My dear, I am the reason you are here. I thought maybe if I sent a son of Hades, someone whom you could sympathize with, you could be persuaded to stay at camp."

Cass turned to Nico. "You—This was all just a job for you?"

"No, my dear, Nico didn't know anything about my little scheme, he thought he was ridding a lake of a nasty monster, when I really had been hoping that you two would meet."

Nico was glaring at Chiron now. "You just used me to get to Cass?"

Chiron looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Nico, it had to be done. I wanted you to honestly want her to come to Camp, and I was worried that if I told you my real motives, you wouldn't be able to convince her. It was underhanded, but all ended well, I suppose."

Nico stormed off and Cass watched him go. Chiron should've told him that his real job was fetching her. At least that would've been honest. But if she was being honest, Cass doubted that she would've agreed to come if Nico had told her that was his only goal.


End file.
